Today is Columbus Day – and while there is a lot of controversy surrounding whether or not our kids should be afforded yet another holiday off from school so soon into the school year, I am instead going to try to stay focused on the positive. My take-away from this year’s Columbus Day is going to be to focus on the notion of “Discovery”.
Columbus was a man in constant pursuit of new discoveries. I can relate to that because as a designer, I can tell you, so are we.
The “discovery” part of our job as communicators is critical to the success of any project. It is our ability to creatively problem-solve that makes our design solutions work – and the quality of our solutions stems directly from our discovery process. So, it pays to stay curious which keeps our creative minds fueled with new ideas. Therefore, I’m always on the hunt for new discoveries.
The desire to find something “fresh”, or to try something “new”, or go in another direction is an inherence trait of all great designers as far as I can tell. We gravitate towards finding different ways to look at the same things or to tell a story in a from a different perspective – always in the pursuit of a unique way to communicate or express our ideas. It is something I’ve been doing since I was a child – the way I dressed, the music I listened to, the way I cut my hair – were all ways to express myself that were experimental, different, unique. I never followed trends. I always knew what I liked and pursued it – which is still true today. I see it now in my daughter. She has that same brave determination to follow her instincts and blaze her own trail no matter what – much like our friend Columbus.
So I propose we spend the day thinking about the notion of discovery. What does it mean to you? What do you want to work on discovering? What have you discovered recently? What is holding you back from trying something new?
Here are some things I’d like to discover this fall:
- I just discovered the above movie trailer for “Moonrise Kingdom”. It looks interesting. I enjoy discovering new films.
- I’d like to re-discover taking images when I purchase this sweet new camera.
- Visit someplace new – but where? Hummm.
- Take a class online and learn a new skill
- Try a new recipe – I’m working on my own version of this one from Baked (not Martha) and is included in my new favorite cookbook I just got in the mail this weekend
You’re turn! Tell me something you’d like to discovery this fall …. and then share with us the results! I promise to do the same in a future post.
~Amy
{images: columbus; moonrise kingdom}
